


Saying goodbye doesn't exist

by LiveLoveDoritos, orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Avengers - Freeform, Blood, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Death, Depression, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hydra Peter Parker, Italian Peter, Italian Tony, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Sexual Assault, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Violence, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, bucky barnes acting as Peter Parker's parental figure, bucky teaches him, but it's not graphic at all, hint of Bruce/Thor because it's cute, peter parker gets turned into an assassin for Hydra
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-01-23 14:18:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18551485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLoveDoritos/pseuds/LiveLoveDoritos, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He can’t shake off the feeling, but when he gives May a hug, he has the faint idea it’ll be the last one for a very long time.





	1. Blackest day

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! It's me again but this time with a horrible wintersoldier! Peter Parker fic because i cant find the motivation to finish the others. Enjoy!!
> 
> (im really sorry if peter's ooc in this!)

It was quiet. 

The night’s antagonizing blue seeps over the city’s form, illuminating the buildings in pinkish orange hues from sun down. 

Peter swings and he swings. Nothing going on. Nothing to do. 

_Too quiet, too quiet, too quiet._

He calls Tony. Something’s wrong. He can feel it in his blood. Of course, in true Tony fashion, he doesn’t answer and Peter is left to figure it out alone. He can’t, though. The city is too quiet, too lovely, too nice, tonight. 

So he goes home, kisses May goodnight and buries himself under the thick comforter on his bed and tries to sleep. Ignoring his throbbing instinct. 

Too quiet. 

_Wrong._

He wakes up. Anxiety flaring in the back of his head, and he knows, _no he feels,_ that there’s something out there. Waiting for him. 

_being watched._

He dresses. A sweater this time, no nerdy puns on t-shirts. He debates on putting his spidersuit underneath his clothes, but ultimately decides against that. 

He eats the breakfast May prepared for him. Toast, and well, more toast, because she can’t cook something better to save her life. 

_Wrong._

He can’t shake off the feeling, but when he gives May a hug, he has the faint feeling it’ll be the last one for a very long time. 

He walks to school. Focused on his surroundings. More alert this time. 

Is someone following me? 

He shakes his head, and continues walking, but somewhere, far deep in his stomach, he feels threatened. A voice in his head screams at him to run, but he ignores all of that. He pushes through the classes with knots in his spine and trembling fingers. 

Ned gives him worried looks, but Peter battles it with a smile, albeit a nervous one, but it still works because Ned bites his lip and focuses back on himself. 

He’s halfway through the English class, and he’s basically just a bonk of nerves, when his phone rings, interrupting his teacher’s boring lecture about math equations, and scaring Peter so much out of his train of thoughts he almost jumps on the ceiling. 

With fingers that feel too long and clumsy he reaches for his phone, and sighs when he sees it’s Tony calling. Bastard. Of course he calls in the middle of his class. 

“Mr. Parker?” His teacher’s voice rings in his ears and brings him back to reality. He’s standing up, with his phone yodeling in his hands and everyone is staring. Self awareness slowly creeps up on him and he feels blood rising to his cheeks. “What are you doing?”

And before Peter can stop himself he says, “Tony Stark is calling me, so, uh, I gotta get this,” and he runs out of the classroom. The teacher’s shouting hot on his heels. 

When he’s on the other end of the hallway, he slides open his phone and answers him, finally. He reminds himself to put it on silent later.

“I’m in the middle of my class man,” he hisses. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Tony tatters back, “but you called yesterday, I wanted to know what it was about.” 

 

Peter pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling compelled to tell Tony the truth, but somewhere in his mind he resists and decides no against that, because he’s probably just being dramatic. It’s fine, there’s nothing going on. He’s just being a little bitch. “I- I, uh, was just wondering if I could come over today?” 

Peter can practically hear him blink with over the phone when five seconds of silence ensue. “Sure, kid? Why not, I’ll have Happy pick you up from school.” 

“Yeah, yeah, see ya.” Peter says. 

Tony says nothing and ends the call. 

Peter bites his lip until it bleeds while he stares at his phone. He puts it back in his pocket, and goes back to class with heavy legs. 

His teacher yells at him until his throat becomes audibly sore and he takes a huge gulp of his disgustingly cheap coffee as he orders Peter to sit back down. 

He suffers through a day that doesn’t seem to end and when finally the bell rings, he doesn’t wait for Ned and sprints through the hallways and the doors that lead outside. 

Happy’s car takes up a lot of space so he spots it immediately, he yanks open the door, gets in and doesn’t listen to Happy as the man lectures him on _don’t fucking rip my doors off man, be careful._

Peter sneers back that he’s gonna tell Tony Happy swore in front of him and that shuts Happy up all the way to Stark tower. 

He sends a text to May that he's at Stark Tower, and she sends him back the thumb emoji. 

“Get out punk.” Happy says when they arrive. 

“I love you man.” Peter says as he gets out. “see ya tonight.” Happy rolls his eyes and Peter flashes him a grin and walks up to the building.  
The nervous knots in his stomach tighten drastically and Peter wants to hurl. But he steps inside the lobby anyway, he says hello to the receptionist and practically stumbles into the private elevator, allowing FRIDAY to read his badge and let him in. 

Like usually, with an upbeat voice, she greets him, and leads him directly to Tony’s personal quarters. 

He steps inside the living room, but doesn’t see Tony, but the smell of food catches on to him, and he lets his nose lead him to the kitchen where said man is preparing dinner. “Ah, Peter,” Tony starts, when he discovers the teen standing in the doorway, bouncing on his legs. “"Wanna help me prepare dinner?” 

“Sure.” Peter smiles and rolls up his sleeves to join Tony in his absolute mess of food scattered everywhere. 

The evening passes quickly. Sarcastic remarks and sneers are thrown at Peter’s head, but he throws retorts back just as easily. 

Tony laughs. His teeth are sharp, and as Peter looks at him, wheezing about something Peter said, he feels sad. He feels so, so sad.

The food is delicious, though, so when Peter compliments him on it, he says. "Kiddo, Pasta Carbonara is my specialty.” Which Peter sighs at because Tony says that about every meal he makes.

They banter a little bit over Tony’s suit, and then Peter’s suit. They watch a movie, and sure enough, May calls Peter to tell him it’s time to come on home. 

“I had fun today kid,” Tony smiles when letting Peter out. 

“Me too.” 

Nervousness radiates off him like sunbeams, he can practically see it. 

What is going on today? 

“See you later, buona notte!"

“Night, Mr. Stark.” And he turns to look at him again. Tony looks back and a soft smile decorates his face, "I'll see you within two days, kiddo. You don't have to miss me. C'mon, go before May comes here and whoops both of our asses." 

Peter is supposed to laugh at that, but he doesn't. "Yeah, yeah, bye Mr. Stark. I'll see you later." He says absentmindently and steps back into the elevator. FRIDAY greets him again and brings him down. When he walks outside his hands start trembling viciously and hair on his neck rises highly before something sharp is jabbed into his neck. 

Peter brings his hand to his neck, and blanches at the bloody fingers that appear. 

_What the fuck?_

Something in his mind tells him to run. So he runs. 

He runs until his legs become heavy. His head dizzy. But he can still fight. 

He runs and he runs. But he’s not fast enough, because hands grab him by the collar and yank him backwards. Peter nearly chokes and claws at the hand. He kicks against his attacker but the attacker doesn’t yield. Terror blooms up in his chest as he trashes around, just trying to get a hit on whomever’s holding him. 

_This is gonna end bad runrunrunrunrunr-_

Another sharp jab in his neck. 

He faintly recalls crying out in pain, but then everything goes black.


	2. Born to die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you start reading this i want to stress that there is a mention of assault but nothing graphic. 
> 
> translations:  
> (i love you kid)  
> (goodbye)
> 
> thanks to Ally for the translations!
> 
> and a special thanks to Peter!! thank you so much darling for helping me write this!
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy this chapter!! Bucky is probably gonna show up in the next one and im so excited!!
> 
> (ps i used the exact same technique of brainwashing on peter as they did on Bucky. sue me lmao)

_Ti voglio bene ragazzino._

_Addio._

There are words that run through Peter’s head, words that seem eternal, that ricochet inside his skull. 

_I love you._

_I can’t wait to see you again._

There are times when he reaches out, his fingers barely grazing whatever he wants to touch. They slip through objects like bittersweet cotton candy dissolving on his tongue. 

He’s drowning in an ocean of darkness, he tries to cough out tar but it tears out his lungs and when he finally succeeds but he doubles over because it hurts. When air finally burns into his lungs again he can’t find it in him to keep breathing in and out _in and out_

_With great power comes great responsibility._

Words intermingle, knit together like wool and they scream so loud until all Peter hears is the throbbing pain in his neck. 

He wakes to nothing but darkness, like the tar he spits had blinded him. His head rips from the left to the right but his eyes don’t adjust. When he tries to move and he can’t, fear worms around his joints adding another layer of knots keeping him held. His hands are probably tied to a chair and his head throbs.

 

_What did they do to me?_

 

_Does Mr. Stark know where I even am?_

_Does May?_

_Are they gonna kill me?_

He opens his mouth and is surprised with the loudness that comes out of it, because his throat feels like he’s been swallowing sand.  
“HELP! IS SOMEBODY THERE? PLEASE HELP ME.” He screams, but in retrospect realises that's not the best idea.  


So he refrains from screaming. 

_I didn’t tell May I loved her this morning._

He forces himself to calm down (Never panic in a code red situation, breathe and access, Tony told him. So he breathes; one, two, three) and looks around warily, more carefully this time . The first thing he discovers is a camera, high up in the ceiling, it bleeps and a red light flickers on and off. 

A chill runs down his spine and he shivers violently. The pain in his neck flares up again. 

He’s being watched. 

Peter tests his strength, tries to unbound his hands, but his arms are too weak, too pathetic, but he’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man always fights. 

“I would prefer it if you wouldn’t do that. A voice says with a thick Russian accent. The sound of a door creaking open can be heard and Peter stops trashing immediately. His heart beating so loud it echoes through his body.

“Wh-who are you?” He asks, his voice cracks and he hates himself for it. 

_Don’t show weakness, Peter Parker._

“What do you want with me? You want money? Tony Stark will pay you, but just let me go.” He tries.

The lights flip on and Peter blinks against the brightness that invades his peripheral vision violently without mercy. When his eyes adjust, he sees he’s in a big room. The walls are grey, dotted with red stains (something tells Peter this wasn’t a decoration choice), and a tall, blond man with his hair slicked back standing in front of him. The lamp above him jiggles dangerously.

There is a mirror on the left wall and his senses flare up every time he looks at it. 

He’s definitely being watched. 

“Oh, dear boy,” the man chuckles. “I don’t want your money.” 

“Then what do you want?” 

The man smiles sinisterly, places his hands on Peter’s bound arms and leans in so close Peter can smell his breath. “I want you.” He whispers.

Peter widens his eyes at him, starts screaming and rears his head back and kicks with his feet. He’s rewarded with a grunt of pain when he hits something and for a moment satisfaction flows through his blood but his moment of victory doesn’t last long, because a hand slaps him right across his face. 

Peter jerks back. Trying to fix the man with the most hateful glare he can. His cheek glows with pain. 

“We won't do that again, will we, Peter Parker?” The man says, grabbing his chin and moving it so, that he has to stare in the man’s eyes. Before Peter can stop himself, he spits in the man’s face. 

The man sighs, let’s go of Peter’s chin, and wipes the saliva of his skin. Then, with the most chilling tone in his voice Peter has ever heard, he says. 

“That was not wise.” 

Peter bites his lip and suffers through the blows delivered to his stomach. 

When the man is done, he stands up straight, tilts his head towards the mirror and says some words in Russian Peter can’t understand. He tries again, much weaker this time, his body feels broken. “Who are you? And what do you want with me?” 

“Oh,” the man says. “You’ll very soon find out.”  


And again he yells something and another man with a syringe in his hand enters, walks slowly towards Peter and sticks it in his arm. Peter tries not to scream, tries not to move, maybe this is all just a really bad nightmare and soon he’ll wake up, and the first thing he’s gonna do is give May a hug, and eat her cooking. He’ll give Mr. Stark a hug too and then they’re gonna re-design his suit. Like they were planning to for months now.

He starts being dizzy now, he stops panicking and an empty blankness swallowing his body whole, and just when he’s about to close his eyes, the blond man snickers.

“Welcome to HYDRA.”

…

The darkness is overwhelming. 

Is he dying? Is he already dead? 

He gasps for answers. He reaches with his fingers, but all they touch are floating stars. The life sucked out of them. He cries out for hope, but all he gets back is the humming of the universe. Never answers. Never anything. He’s lost. He treads on his toes, trying to find the light but where is it? 

He remembers someone telling him if he cannot find whatever he’s seeking, he just needs to make his own solution. But that’s the point. The very core of it. He can’t make solutions because he’s in so much-

Pain. 

It’s sudden and explosive and white-hot. 

It’s like a hand reaches in and drags him back to the light, but it is not soothing, it’s not starlight. It’s not golden but it’s rotten and dirty and violated. It’s not sunshine, though it burns and blisters his body in a way only Icarus could understand. 

Another jolt of pain makes his body seize. His lungs stop working and he gasps for air.

He sees a hand dance in front of his vision and very distant he hears words being muttered. 

_Уполномочивать. (empowered)_

He tries to move, but he’s stuck and- 

_Милая (Sweet)_

His head nearly bursts and he bites down so hard on his teeth that they should break, but they don’t, something is stopping it- 

_Четыре (four)_

His neck hurts and he can’t move- 

_Тишина (silence)_

Another jolt of pain and he screams out for May. Wants her to hold him. 

_Послушание (obedience)_

He reaches out for Tony. 

_Пыль (dust)_

Their fingers don’t ever touch.  


_Время (time)_

The pain is unbearable. He might die and if he’s being honest? He doesn’t care. 

_Волокно (fiber)_

He doesn’t want to do this anymore- 

_Сдача (surrender)_

He’s floating. _(please ground me- put my feet on the floor- hold me-)_

_Агония (agony)_

He’s gone. 

…

Peter doesn’t know how much time has gone by when he wakes up from the cold again, but he moves one hand over his chin and feels stubble. 

Somewhere Peter knows it has been months and months. 

…

Peter thinks of Tony and waits for him to come.

He never does.

…

They strap him to the chair everyday, (one of the guards said he only survived this because he’s enhanced) and they do it as long until Peter cannot remember his own name. 

…

All he hears is static. His mind is foggy and there is something he was supposed to remember. Something to cling to, but he doesn’t know anymore. It’s frustrating and he screams and trashes like a feral dog until the guards come into his cell and beat him until he loses consciousness.

…

The first time the admiral with that mole on his face comes to visit him at night and doesn’t make himself scarce, Peter is actually happy to get the chair the next day. 

At least he can forget about what happened to him and focus on the never ending pain. 

The admiral comes back the following night. 

…

His clothes grow too tight, and stiff with sweat. His stomach becomes bare, and there’s no dirty, blood stained sweater to cover it anymore. 

He spends most nights writhing in cold.

…

They put him in cryo, which seems cruel to many, but Peter is glad when it happens. At least he’s not being hurt. At least the hands that visit him at night won’t touch him for that time being.

For Peter, it’s a blessing.

…

One day, he cards his hand through his with lice-filled and blood-flecked hair and notices it’s almost on his shoulders.

…

“May,” he croaks out one day when the white-coat draws his blood with a burning syringe. They always test his blood when he gets out of cryo.

But a memory older than he knows, younger than fire keeps popping up in front of his vision. A woman. Someone important. Her hair was brown, and they spoke a language he can feel in his blood but he doesn’t _remember._ But he thinks he was loved. Tender, with sugar and sweets. Not like he was loved here. Cruel, with ashes and gunpowder.

The white-coat chuckles; her eyes are ice and her hair is always red. So red.

She leans in close until her lips touch his ear. “Hydra is your family now.” She whispers harshly.

They take gallons of blood and it weakens him to the point he can no longer stand, but they hurt him until he learns that soldiers are never weak. 

He knows what she's saying is not true.

…

They tell him his new name is the Spider. 

The Spider thinks this must be some kind of joke, but then The Spider is not allowed to think, so he nods curtly and stares tightly into the distance. In the background, people are screaming. 

… 

The chair beats every last bit of humanity he has left out of him, and in the end when he lies awake in his cell, the cold seeps into his bones and he feels absolutely nothing.

…

There are other boys his age. He knows because he hears them screaming sometimes, just like they can with no doubt about it hear him.

There’s one in the cell next to him, and if they talk through the little vent in the corner of their cells, they can communicate. They don’t do this often, because if they get caught they’ll get punished, and those who get punished often don’t return. 

The Spider thinks it’s because Hydra doesn’t want its soldiers to have their own thoughts, or ideas because it might break the programming. The soldiers are worthless then, so they get killed on sight, like they’re animals. 

Maybe, the Spider supposes, when his mind wanders back to how gruesome one of the boys was slaughtered by one of his own during training, they are.

But then again. He is not allowed to think.

“We’re going to die.” The soldier next to him says one day out of the blue. His voice is cold. The Spider thinks it might have been warm once. But that must have been a long time ago.

“Well, then.” The Spider fixes his eyes on the ceiling, “prepare for hell.”

…

They inject a serum into his blood which makes his body boil and his skin cold. He thinks he vomits but he’s not sure because his vision is blurry and dotted with black specks. His lungs are squeezed from all air and his stomach is hollow. 

Afterwards, he learns he is the only one out of the fourteen boys that survived this. The guards smile their crooked teeth bare and ruffle his hair. 

“Just as strong as the Winter soldier.” One of them says. 

“I think it’s time.” Another one says.

The Spider feels nothing. He just obeys.

If he doesn’t, he’ll get the chair.

…

His hair grows until the point it gets in the way when he fights. He asks one of his guards that is with him twenty/four seven if he can cut it, but he just gets a growl in return.

The Spider cuts it with his knife anyway. Short, sharp and brutal. 

…

“Are you ready, Soldier?” A guard asks him, his hat is red like the blood that adds on his hands after every training.

“I am ready.” The Spider answers.

The cold is numb in his chest.

And the static?

The static is nothing new.


	3. Doin' time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Bucky!!!!!!!!
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> (tw for mention of assault)
> 
> (edit: deleted the last part because i think it went too fast and i just didnt like it)

(Hands on his cheeks, they are hard and rough like the hands that hurt him every day. Brown, abused eyes that hold sorrow, so much sorrow. “Never take someone’s life, buddy. No matter how tempting. You will change, and you will change for good. Never let them change you, okay?”) 

The Spider tries to cling to those words like it’s the only means of survival he has as they lead him to the chair, clinging to it like a raft on the ocean as he’s near drowning. Except The Spider hasn’t seen the ocean in a very, very long time. He hasn’t felt the salty air on his skin, and the waves lapping at his feet in years.

(Years? 

Or decades?)

In the end, he loses everything.

…

 

The first time The Spider kills a man is on his very first mission. 

He was seen, and that means the mission is compromised. And now, because of his own recklessness he is looking at the wrung out body on the floor, blue lips and a wrong expression on his face. The man’s blood, from where The Spider stabbed him in the neck, pooling underneath him. 

(Brown eyes, or were they green?) 

(Never let them change you) 

The Spider bites his lip, the flashdrive with all the information Hydra needed on it clenched between his fingers. 

(Were his hands calloused? Or were they soft?) 

They never changed him. 

They ruined him.

 

… 

He’s put on ice after rejecting the Admiral’s hands all over him. 

The guards said he was lucky they kept him alive after he comes out after what must’ve been a long while, because he didn’t remember grey streaks in their hair. 

The Admiral turns out to be dead. He was killed in some Hydra facility up north for reasons they don’t tell him but for the first time in a long, long while The Spider feels. 

He feels relief.

…

 

The next mission he kills a whole family for coming home too early. 

He watches the life drain from their eyes, but The Spider?

The Spider feels absolutely nothing. 

(A soldier always obeys)

…

The third mission goes wrong. 

(An agent got killed in a shoot-out and there was absolutely nothing The Spider could do to save him.)

They put him in his cell and let him rot away while his thoughts eat at him like the rats that scurry over his floor ate every last bit of food he had saved up, while he was away. 

The Spider’s hair reaches his shoulders again when they finally let him out. 

…

“You’re being transferred,” one of the agents tells him, “we have no longer any use for you.” 

The Spider nods, weak on his legs from dehydration and malnutrition. 

_Why not just kill me,_ He wants to ask, but soldiers never ask questions. 

(Soldiers always obey)

…

He’s going to Siberia one of his nicer guards tells him as they get into the black van. The man is full praise about the Hydra facility there,

“At least they know how to discipline! They trained The Winter soldier and if they can train him, they can train you. You’ll be a fine soldier, Spider.” His guard muses, “a fine soldier indeed.”

“You kidding me?” the other guard snorts, his rifle shifts and clicks when they drive over a bump in the road. “They’ll bust his tiny ass within seconds. Look at those scrawny arms.”

“He’s a strong boy. With some training I’d bet he’ll be even better than the Winter soldier.” His guard shoots back, gaze fixing on The Spider who stares tightly at the bottom of the van.

Always listening. 

"Maybe with some training he’ll survive the Winter Soldier. And no one survives him.” The other guard says, cutting the conversation short.

 _Winter Soldier_

Sounds familiar. 

The Spider lets it go. It’s better not to dwell on certain things, he knows if he does that it’ll eat him until one day it’s consumed him like water will consume the earth when it overflows. Destroying everything in its path. 

And in this business, The Spider can’t use that.

He looks at the shoes of his favorite guard; combat boots, they’re stained with blood and Spider swallows hard as he remembers why that is.

In his stomach, he feels a pang of hunger.

 

…

He gets assigned to a cell with a small mattress and a toilet in the corner. Men with blood shot eyes and red hats and bruises on their faces shut his door and then the Spider waits and waits and waits.

…

The Spider has no idea how much time has passed because he stopped counting when he came to 12367 and saw the sun rise and set through the tiny slit of chipped wall, when they suddenly enter his cell and grab him harshly by his bicep.

They line all of them up against the doors of the cells. The widows on his right, agents on his left.

They lead in a man with a metal arm and bark something in Russian at him. The man straightens, his long, dark hair falling flat around his face and his haunted, sunken, icy blue eyes which are so devoid from humanity, that it takes The Spider aback, trails down the line of people, scanning every little detail and cramming it into his brain. 

He knows because he has been trained to do the same.

Involuntary, The Spider shivers when the man sets his eyes on him, feeling them burn holes into his heart until all his secrets and forbidden knowledge lay out into the open and there are things Hydra cannot know, or that will be taken away from him too. He looks down as soon it happens. Where he comes from, eye contact is not something that will go unpunished. Where he comes from it’s seen as an act of defiance, of rebellion. And the Spider has made that mistake far too often now. 

The Spider learns, and he adapts.

Eventually, after the soldier has been staring for a long time he points at a brown haired agent with his dark blue veins shining through his sickly pale skin, and then he points at another agent. His eyes are black, almost _inhuman_ and his face is so terrifyingly blank that were The Spider not to so apathetic he’d be actually scared. The blonde haired widow next to him stiffens, but he doesn’t turn to look at her. 

“You two.” The soldier says, his voice a sullen and cold thing, “fight.”

…

The Spider doesn’t know how shit could go down this badly, but it did and now he needs to deal with it. 

The spar between the soldiers went south, somehow. Spider has no idea why but he guesses it has something to do with a deficiency within their programming. Having to go through with it when seeing one little splatter of blood. Just a healthy sense of blood lust, his trainer would say. And when one sheep crosses the dam, the rest of the flock follows. The Spider is actually planning to stand his ground, not fighting because he doesn’t want to get punished. But as soon he accidentally looks over the heads of the soldiers, beating each other into the cold hard floor of the prison they’re being held, he makes eye contact with the second most scary eyes he has ever seen, and he knows he can’t just stand there. 

There’s something in the soldier’s posture, maybe the acknowledging look of _I can’t do this alone_ that urges him to help the soldier and break the other soldiers apart. 

The Spider sighs and nods at the soldier, who nods back. The thrill of maintaining eye contact fading, and The Spider mentally counts to three before giving a shrill scream and diving into the fighting mess, smelling of blood and fried brains.

He lets his fists swing and his feet kick to whatever he can hit, and then he’s hit himself. Blood pools in his mouth and he spits it out. It’s messy and he doesn’t know how many times he punches someone and he doesn’t know how many times he gets punched right back but he knows it’s painful and full of hurt. Eventually he fights with the winter soldier to his back. 

“Soldier." The soldier calls, and Spider makes a grunt of acknowledgment. “On your left.” And Spider sees the guy with the pale skin coming and gives him a nasty right hook to the jaw. He's knocked out immediately. 

They fight back to back until the bodies litter the floor, only the widows and a few agents stand wobbly on their feet. Blood dripping from various parts of their bodies but they never appear weak. They never cry and Spider wonders how they do it. 

…

The handlers storm back in when the fight is over, obviously they’d taken cover from the mass of deranged soldiers killing each other. They hit the winter soldier in his face and they yell and scream at him. The soldier takes it all, despite being physically stronger than all of them.

The few left standing are grabbed and taken. To be punished, Spider thinks bitterly as one handler stalks down the corridor, dragging the blonde haired widow with him. Their gazes lock, and Spider's breath catches in his throat as he really, _really_ sees her. She can't be any older than twelve.

And then he’s being grabbed too, dragged down the dark corridor as well. He looks at the hand that clenches his arm so tightly but it’s gloved. He mentally sighs and prepares for what’s about to come.

He doesn’t fight it, he never fights it. Fighting means an even worse punishment. Worse than the chair. 

The Winter soldier fights for him instead. 

“No, no.” he croaks out, “not him. He helped me.”

The handler that hit the soldier in the face knits his brows together. “Him?” he points at Spider with his rifle. There’s no surge of fear at the sight of the weapon anymore. It happens so often.

But The Winter soldier nods vigorously, “Yes, him. He helped.”

“Well," The handler lowers his rifle, “You are responsible for his training, then.” He barks something at the guard still having an iron grip around his bicep and he’s let go in an instant. 

The Winter soldier looks at The Spider. 

The Spider looks back, and he sees humanity.

The smallest, tiniest flicker of hope.


	4. Gods & monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey people!!! I'm sorry it took me this long, but i had exams and vacation plus a huge writers block. I'm not very sure about this chapter but i hope it's good enough!
> 
> Rape tw, though it's not very graphic. 
> 
> Torture tw

He misses something. 

Only he does not know what. 

(Red and gold. Hands that feel like sandpaper touch his cheek. Tenderly. Lovingly. But the beautiful touch morphs into something dark. Something bloody, and the Spider falls back into the abyss. There is only death and pain.)

The winter soldier touches his shoulder, and The Spider looks up. 

(A smile.  
A laugh?)

There is only the reminder that he and the Spider are nothing but weapons. No emotions. No feelings. 

The Spider knows how to execute that perfectly by now.

…

 

When he is trained they only speak in Russian, even though the Spider doesn’t remember he ever learned it. 

…

He learns how to create a bomb, and he learns how to deactivate it. 

He learns how to shoot a gun, and he learns how to properly kill someone. 

A knife in their neck, behind their collarbone. Make sure you get the aorta. 

The soldier teaches him how to fight. How to really fight, how to give everything you have for the mission. It doesn’t matter if you die, as long as you can get what you came for and somehow get it to Hydra. 

He learns how to sneak around, to make his footsteps as light as a feather. He learns not to make so many casualties that it’s noticeable. 

The soldier teaches him how to live for Hydra, and Hydra only. But not even he can work out the tightness in the Spider’s chest. The twisted wrongness, squeezing his heart, his lungs, his throat until he can’t breathe.

The soldier teaches him how to fight dirty, and in his technique there is no room for mercy. 

Attack, slash, kill. 

“Simple.” The soldier tells him after he leaves the Spider with multiple cuts and bruises on the floor. The only reason he’s not being ended is because the Soldier is simply not allowed to. 

…

He’s being put on ice, which means a mission is coming up soon.

…

Before he goes, they clean him thoroughly, meaning; the hose. It’s cold and the pressure hurts on his skin, but how else would you clean a weapon?

After someone cuts his hair short and gets rid of all the lice, he is ready to comply. 

“Can’t do much about the stink,” the woman says, pulling up her nose. 

The spider stares at the ground.

…

Objective: acquiring flash-drive. Sixth floor, third office to the right. 

Location: New York. 

Target: Pym Technologies. 

Simple steps. He burns them into his brain. Into his soul, so he won’t forget. 

If he manages to remain hidden, no one has to die today. 

…

He hacks the security feed, endlessly rewinding the last ten seconds, so he has about five minutes before they find it out. 

He sneaks to the sixth floor, into the third office on the right, but stops dead in his tracks when a man sits at his desk, rapidly typing away at his laptop. Shit. He wasn't supposed to be here today.

He scans the room before the man has time to look up. Three PHD’s are framed on his wall. Four pictures of his kids in various sizes, but they’re all excluding his wife. Looking at the silver wedding ring gracing his finger, the Spider knows he’s cheating.

“Who are you,” the man says, raising one eyebrow, and that’s the moment when his training kicks in. He says nothing as he stalks over to the man, pulls out his knife, holds his struggling body and jabs the weapon into his neck. Behind the collarbone. He makes sure he gets the aorta. The man screams, but the Spider muffles that with holding his hand over the man’s mouth. 

While the man gurgles and spasms on the floor, the spider searches the entire office, eventually finding the flash-drive in the safe behind the biggest picture of his kids. He hacks the code, retrieves the flash-drive, and just walks out of the doors, nodding at the personnel. Hoodie covering most of his face. 

…

They praise him for his good work as he hands in the flash-drive. 

Then he gets wiped and put on ice again. 

…

The soldier teaches him how to use long range guns. He teaches him how to embrace it as a part of himself. 

“You’re good.” The soldier says when spider shoots the target doll four times through the head, a slight smile gracing his face, just enough for the spider to know it’s a smile without tipping off the handlers. 

The spider feels himself smiling back, and something hurts deep, deep, deep inside. 

…

In a prison full of murderers, rapists, and sadists, the soldier is the only one who’s not. 

When the Spider does something good, he gets praise. 

When the Spider is tired, the soldier helps him get over it before the handlers notice. 

When the Spider needs it, the soldier pats him on his back. 

In a prison full of psychopaths, Nazi’s, and brainwashed assets, the soldier is the only place the Spider feels safe. 

Even when he watches him murder an opponent in cold blood. 

Even when he watches him act like a beast, screaming his throat raw. When he’s out of control. When he _remembers_.

Even when he watches the guards whisk him away, and even when he hears him howling in pain as they inflict all kinds of torture on him.

In a prison full of freaks, beasts, and narcissists, the soldier is the only one so incredibly fucked up, and still capable of compassion. 

…

“I think-” The soldier starts, which is a mistake because soldiers are not allowed to think. Luckily no one hears them. Or maybe they do and just don’t care, “-that someday you will be better than me.” 

The spider looks at the target doll, and the perfect shots through the thing’s head, and swallows hard. “I don’t want to be.” He whispers. 

The soldier only shrugs.

…

He does become one of the greatest assassins Hydra has ever had. Master in stealth, fighting and getting the information he needs. He’s the primary example of all the assets Hydra has. He is what the other soldiers should yearn to be.

His handler is proud to tell him that some of his skills even exceed those of The Winter soldier. 

That same evening he gets beaten like a dog for asking a question. 

…

He’s not alone in his cell. 

Wandering hands touch him in an ugly way. Sharp teeth glint in the dim lighting from the hall. And the Spider wishes they would have killed him during training.

…

The Spider kills one of the widows. She has brown eyes, and black hair. Three exact freckles dotted on her nose.

He deals her the finishing blow, and he watches as her body goes limp. 

He feels nothing. And he wonders if he’s damned because of it.

In the background, a guard is laughing at her blue corpse like a hyena.

The soldier, who ordered them to fight, folds his arms and looks at the spider with concern. 

The spider stares hard at the floor. 

…

One day, out of undeserved fury, because the Spider did everything right, his handler throws a knife at him. 

He steps aside, and the knife misses him. 

His handler jumps up from his chair, yells, and stalks off to where the spider is standing. He doesn’t move, and lets the handler do whatever he wants to. 

He ends up with a broken jaw, but that’s not even half as bad as what has been done to him before. Besides, it heals within twenty-four hours. Nothing to worry about. 

… 

The spider doesn’t see the soldier for a very, very long time. 

In that time he has fifty-two missions, succeeding every single one of them. 

He almost forgets him, when one day he finds the soldier in the training area. 

“Soldier.” He acknowledges. He doesn’t ask where he’s been. 

But it’s obvious the soldier has it tough because he walks with a limp and his reaction time isn’t nearly as good as normal. 

Spider doesn’t even want to know what happened to him, but whatever it was, it must have been pure hell. 

“Positions.” The soldier heaves, black circles under his eyes. Trembling fists are raised up in the air. 

The spider beats him with no problem at all, and as he looks at the soldier, laying on the ground like a bird that broke it’s wing, his chest aches, and aches, and aches. 

Second match, he lets the soldier win.

The soldier looks up at him with the smallest hint of grattitude, and the spider knows that he means the same for him, as the soldier does for the spider. 

The tiniest, flicker of hope.

… 

In his worst hours he dreams of the color red and gold. 

He dreams of a woman with brown hair and glasses. Waiting for him to come home. She has warm arms, made just for him. 

He dreams of a man that brushes his shoulder. He wears those colors, and with him he feels safer than he has ever before. 

He dreams of a boy with brown eyes as bright as the sun. 

He dreams of a girl with long hair, and flowy skirts.

He does not know where they came from, and he’s not sure if they’re real, but they’re good, good dreams. And good dreams are all the spider has left. 

…

Sometimes they make a mistake, like accidentally looking their handler into their eyes, or not being feral enough during training. 

Sometimes, they torture them for no reason at all.

The spider presumes it is to stay in control. To let them know who’s in charge. To scare them into never running away, seeking for a small chance of freedom. To scare them into submission.

So they strap him onto a table. Pour water over him, and electrocute him. They burn him, and cut up the palms of his hands.

They don’t sedate him, and frankly, the spider isn’t sure he feels the pain anyway. 

And he wonders, what if you’re in so much hurt, that it stops hurting all together? 

He doesn’t know. He hasn’t felt anything in so long.

…

He wakes up to the walls of his cell. It's small, closing in. Almost claustrophobic. The cuts almost gone. 

It takes a lot of him not to scream. 

(Soldiers don’t scream. They do not feel. They do not ache) 

He’s only a weapon. Nothing more. Nothing less. 


	5. Fallen Angels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEy guys! This update was long over due and i'm sorry, but so much happened. i started school again and all kinds of shit happened, but here we are. I hope y'all enjoy, and please comment down below! i wanna hear y'alls opinions! 
> 
> I'm still not very sure about this one, though, but let's just see!
> 
> (this will be the last chapter for a while)

Years pass and the Spider learns not to ask questions anymore. To gratefully accept the food he’s been given. To not look anyone in the eyes. To be as invisible as he possibly can.

The winter Soldier, who trains him every day when he’s not in Cryo, or out for a mission, observes him intently during long-range training. The Spider is still not very good at it. He gets a creeping suspicion he’ll never be good at it. 

The eyes of the man on him burn holes into his skin, and a feeling of irritation settles on his tongue. “What.” He snaps out and immediately feels bad. 

The Soldier doesn’t seem to care. Much, anyway. “You’re changing.” He states. His blue eyes hollow but alert. They’re always alert. 

The Spider shoots. Misses the target. “What do you mean?” he asks. 

The Winter Soldier swallows, the Spider sees his Adam's apple bobble. “You’re letting them get to you.” 

“Well.” Says the Spider sardonically. “They got to you as well.” 

The man leans forward until his lips are near the Spider’s ear. “You don’t understand. You are still young. You must not let them break you.” He whispers. 

The Spider wants to retort that they’ve already done that. That the damage is irreversible. But the words won’t leave his lips. They get stuck behind his teeth, so the Spider grinds them down hard. He doesn’t dare gaze up at the Soldier, but he knows the expression on his face like he knows the few memories he has left. 

“Okay.” He says. “Okay.” 

The Soldier’s flesh hand finds refuge on his back, and it’s been so long since the Soldier has done that. The Spider feels the warmth of another human being seeping through the fabric of his clothes and doesn’t know how to feel, or how to deal with it. He shoots, and his vision is so blurred that he can’t see if he hit the target or not.

...

There is a commotion in the compound. The Spider feels it in the air. Someone is coming. Someone of great importance. They do not tell him who or what, but it’s not like the Spider is going to ask. 

There is no Cryo-freeze or chair. No. he just gets shoved into his cell with food and water and is told to wait for further orders. 

The Spider is obedient. He makes no sound, eats his food, saves a portion of it for tomorrow, and waits. 

He waits and waits. 

He counts the seconds, makes wild stories in his head about the girl with flowy skirts and flying suits of Iron. Makes songs that make no sense. His voice is rusty and ugly, but does it really matter?

And he waits. 

In those hours he spends waiting he decides that he hates waiting. He gets up from his flimsy mattress and walks around. He does push-ups. Fights against the wall. Trains a little bit, until he realizes this is the perfect occasion to get some sleep, especially since he never does get much sleep. 

He sleeps. He wakes up, and he’s still waiting. He eats some food and makes up some more stories. 

He thinks it’s a whole two days later until one of the guards comes bursting into his cell startling the Spider out of his thoughts. 

“Come with me, boy.” He spits, and soldiers always obey, so he follows the guard like a lost puppy following its owner. 

The guard leads him into the training room, and it's apparent he’s the last one to arrive. The others are already in formation. The widows to the left, the soldiers to the right. The only exception is the Winter Soldier, who stands in the corner, still as a statue. 

The Spider looks at him wordlessly as he resumes his place in the formation. He raises his eyebrows subtly. ‘What’s going on?’

The Soldier blinks. His leather-clad gleams dimly in the shallow lighting. It flickers, but they won't repair it. ‘Not now.’ 

The whole room goes deadly silent the minute the door opens and in steps a man. He wears a suit, shiny shoes, and is accompanied by two men bigger than the Soldier. His cold, dead eyes trail along the line of the girls, and they narrow. He points at them and says. “Out.” 

He’s American.

Their handler secretly breathes a sigh of relief and scurries out with them. Their footsteps echoing from the hallway. 

The fat American smiles widely when he lays his eyes on the Winter soldier and he walks towards him. “Ah.” He says. “My favorite.” He pats the Soldier’s cheek like he is a little child, and then turns to the Spider’s handler. “So. I’ve heard rumors about a Spider.” 

The handler pulls The Spider out of the line. “This is him, sir.” He says in an accent that’s so terrible it makes him cringe.

The American claps his meaty hands. “Well? What are you waiting for? I read all the files, I want to see what he can do.” 

The Spider completes the course he’s done so many other times. He’s finished within fifteen seconds, eliciting a nod of approval out of the American. The Spider has no business to feel so proud of himself, but he does. 

The other soldiers run the course as well, but no one tops the Spider of course. It sends The American in various fits. The worst ones get dragged out of the room. The best ones get lined up again. 

After they’re all finished, the American claps his hands. “Good! It’s all good. I want to see them fight, are they really as good as you’ve been telling me?” 

The handler nods quickly, with a tad of desperation. “Yes, sir.” He pushes the Spider forward to the middle of the room. He then yanks another soldier out of the line. The Spider feels his stomach drop. The handler chose the weakest boy, the smallest boy. The Spider has spent ages teaching him not to cower in fear. The best advantage he has is his speed. It’s the sole reason why he’s still in the line.

“No mercy.” The American says, a gleam in his eyes like he’s a little boy and he’s just been told he can go pick out a toy.

“No mercy.” The handler repeats and blows on the whistle. 

The boy lunges and the Spider has no difficulty blocking him. 

He has no difficulty deflecting his kicks and blows, and he senses it as soon when the boy gets tired. The Spider hooks a foot against the boy’s knees, and he falls to the ground. He moves to get up at once, but the Spider is already on top of him, his hands to his throat. 

The Spider spends a few moments in conflict. He knows no mercy means to kill, but the Spider doesn’t want to kill today. Not here. Not right now. 

The boy chokes and claws, and as a last resort, taps out. 

The Spider releases him and gets back to his feet. The boy lies wheezing on the floor, hands touching the sore skin of his throat. Tears glisten in his eyes. Mentally, he shouts for the boy to get up. To not show weakness where the American can see it. 

The American, however, is seething. “Why didn’t you kill him?” he barks, stalking up towards the Spider and hits him square in the face. 

The Spider’s head jerks along with the motion. Shame pools in his chest and heat his cheeks at being hit like he’s a small boy. 

“I do not tolerate weakness.” The American whispers. His breath stinks of coffee. He whips his head around to the guards, and without telling them to, they grab the crying, screaming boy off of the floor and drag him out of the room.

The Spider bites his lip. Stares at the rubber training mat. 

“Why didn’t you do what we asked of you?” The American asks, voice slick. 

The Spider looks up. Looks at the Winter soldier, who shakes his head. 

His chest aches. The boy is dead now, because of him. Anger bubbles up in his chest, the urge, the need to lash out was overwhelming. “Because I didn’t want to.” He spits out. He locks eyes with the American, holds his gaze. “He was only a child.”

The American bristles like a horse, a vein starts beating in his neck, and his skin reddens. He turns around, his fists are clenched. “Get him out before I kill him myself.” He snaps, and the whole room starts moving. 

A guard grabs his arm, and pulls him out of the training room, into the hallway, and to the room with that damned table in the middle

They strap him down, and then the pain starts. 

Like Lucifer, the Spider fell. Deeper and deeper until he reached absolute hell. 

...

Months go by, and the boy never comes back. 

Months go by, and the Spider discovers that Hydra doesn’t forget so easily. 

// 

The Soldier is angry at him. It’s subtle, but the Spider sees it in the way he’s short and withdrawn. He doesn’t initiate touch and doesn’t talk unless spoken too. 

They’re on their way to get cleaned. They both have a new mission coming up soon. But the Soldier just walks on with his eyes forward. Not even darting towards the Spider. 

The anger and the ignoring make him sick. He steps closer. “What is your problem?” he hisses quietly so the guard won’t hear. 

The Soldier’s face contorts angrily. He lets out a shuddering breath before answering. “You’re foolish. That’s my problem.” 

The Spider narrows his eyes. “I’m not foolish.” 

“Yes, you are.” The older man snaps. “You’re lucky you didn’t get killed after that stunt you pulled with Pierce.” 

“He asked me to kill a little boy. I refused.” He bites, wishing he had pockets he could shove his hands into. 

The soldier grunts, “I understand. But it’s only that they need you, that you are still alive right now. Don’t do that again.” 

The Spider wants to say something, but they’re already there. 

The hose always leaves his skin throbbing, but they say it’s necessary to get all the filth off. The Spider ignores the pain and watches the water as it takes all of the blood that’s caked onto his and the Soldier’s bodies and disappears down the drain. 

When it’s done, the Soldier first passes a towel to the Spider before he takes one himself. He wraps himself in it and gives the Spider a long look. 

The Spider looks back as he rubs the sturdy towel over his hair. There are red stains when he does so. “What?” he asks. 

“I’ll be gone for quite a bit.” The Soldier says. Smiles. His eyes are fathomless. “Don’t do anything stupid.” 

The Spider feels like he should say something back. Like it’s some sort of inside joke, but he’s missed the punchline. 

“I won’t,” he says. It’s cold. “I promise.” 

The soldier’s smile falls. “Good.” He says, and dresses. 

 

...

The Spider finishes his mission, and when he gets back, the soldier hasn’t returned yet. 

He shrugs and carries on like normal. It’s not like it never happened before. 

The months go by, and still, the soldier isn’t back. 

It’s unnerving, but he does what he always does. Practices long-range sniper guns, trains the widows and the soldiers and carries on his missions. The incident with Pierce isn’t forgotten, but they let him off the hook a little easier now that the soldier is gone. 

Then, suddenly, after months of absence, he’s back. 

And he’s in the Spider’s holding cell. He’s sitting on the mattress, his metal hand clenched in the lonely sheet that poses as a blanket.

“Winter. You’re back.” The Spider breathes. 

The soldier nods. His eyes are wet and lighter. The Spider looks at him in confusion. Something’s changed, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. 

“I’m back.” The Soldier laughs, a throaty, sad sound. Eerie, like he’s on the verge of crying.

And before the Spider knows what’s happening, he’s wrapped his arms around the man. The soldier stiffens, before returning the embrace. 

“I missed you.” The Spider whispers. He missed him even though he was angry with the Spider. He missed him because life at the compound is near unbearable without someone to hold you and wipe away the tears. 

“I missed you too.” The soldier says. 

The Spider draws away from him and smiles. “Why are you here?” 

“One of the guards was willing to do me a favor after something in exchange.” The Soldier looks away in shame. The Spider doesn't need to ask. He knows.

“Did everything go okay?” he asks instead. Change is in the air and he doesn’t know if he likes it. “You’ve been gone for so long.” 

The soldier’s big hands cup his face gently and he leans in. “I saw him. He’s _real_.” He whispers conspiratorially. 

His face is getting smushed, but he has no desire to break contact. “Who?” 

“ _Him_.” The soldier says. His eyes are wide as saucers. There are faded bruises along the side of his face. His hair is a little too long. 

“I don’t know who 'him' is.” The Spider admits, a little sorry. 

“My dream.” The soldier says softly, and in that moment his expression is so raw that it makes the Spider want to curl in on himself and weep for the rest of eternity. 

“Your dream?” 

The man barks out a huffy laugh. Eerie, with a tad of desperation in it. “Yes. The blond boy. His coughs are so bad, kid. So bad.” 

The spider doesn’t like this. He places his hands on the older man’s wrists. “Winter,” he urges, “what are you talking about.” 

“He’s so big now and—“ he stops talking, the smile falls off of his face, and all that is left is heartbreaking loneliness, “—I thought I was dreaming. But he’s real.” 

Absolutely nothing made sense. “You talked to him?” 

He nods frantically, lets go of the Spider’s face and starts pacing around the tiny cell. “He called me Bucky. Can you believe that? Fucking ‘Bucky.’ Said that was my name.” He laughs again, and it sounds like he’s going mad. 

The Spider looks at the door, and the camera vested in the ceiling. “Please, Winter. Calm down.” 

“His name is Steve Rogers. Captain America. My mission.” He stops pacing all at once, startling the Spider with it. His face crumbles, and intense fear takes place. “Oh God, I didn’t finish it.” He grabs the Spider’s biceps and shakes him. Hard. “Kid, I didn’t finish my mission.” 

The Spider tensed. “Winter. Calm down. It’s all going to be okay.” 

The soldier does as the Spider says, but does it in a way that sends shivers down his spine. His fathomless, old eyes bore into his. “No.,” he says, brittle, sad, tired. “No. It won’t be.” 

The Spider is near crying. “Please. It will be. Just calm down. We can figure it all out.” He takes the soldier’s hand in his. “Just lie down and sleep, okay? You are making things up.” 

The man fights against him. “No.” he shouts. “I don’t want to lie down. He’s real, kid. I swear he is.” 

And the Spider believes him. It shakes him to his core, but he believes him. 

“So what now?” he asks. 

The soldier looks at the floor, long and hard. “I don’t know, kid. I just don’t know.”


	6. Oh Freedom!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely people! Today is my birthday, and i had this baby ready. So i thought i'd give it to you as a birthday present from me! 
> 
> Enjoy! 
> 
> (Lmaooooo just found out i left out a whole part of the beginning skjfkajk)

“We just need to wait,” the Soldier tells him, then. The Spider’s heart is pounding. “We’ll wait for the right moment, and then we’ll get the hell out of here.” 

The Spider wants to sink through the ground, wants that the guards cleave his chest with bullets for even thinking up a plan. He’s a soldier. Soldiers are obedient. Soldiers stay right where they’re supposed to stay. There are consequences when you don’t listen to orders, and does he really want to test those limits? “I don’t want that.” He says silently. “We can’t leave here? They’ll kill us!”

The Soldier moves closer and the Spider wants the man to hold him but he needs him to stay back as well. He’s trapped in a cage of ribs and blood, his chest constricts and his lungs do not work like they are supposed to. But the Soldier rests his hands tenderly on his shoulders and it reminds him of an action of a long time ago, filled with brown eyes and the love for a child and for some reason his chest starts aching. “We gotta take the risk, kid.” The soldier’s eyes blaze, determined and cold. “We can’t stay here.” 

And deep down, the Spider knows the Soldier is right. He feels it in his very bones and the way his blood starts rushing in his ear and nods.

...

Waiting for the right moment to bolt takes surprisingly slow. 

The Spider does all of his usual things when he’s not deployed. He makes small talk with his handler, because the man likes formalities. It usually goes a bit like this; 

‘Good morning soldier. How did you sleep?’ 

And he’ll reply, ‘good, sir, thank you. How is the weather today?’ 

And his handler, with eyes white and stale blue and lines around his mouth, will say, ‘Cold, but we’ll survive.’ 

Once that is over he’s led to the training room, where the boys are ready for him. He ruffles their hair and ignores the ugly glances of the trainers with their yellow, bloodshot eyes and then lets the kids brutally fight each other after, and then mourns their innocence as they give shrill screams when fists make contact with their cheeks and have metallic blood dripping off of their knuckles, their childhood tossed into a pond like a dying twig. The oldest is only something akin to sixteen, maybe fourteen. They all look older than they should. The youngest is six, this is something the Spider knows. The kid was taken from his home, something about a to be paid off to Hydra. He was told all about it by the kid.

After he gets back to his cell where he presses his face into a pillow and hopes it’ll stop him from drawing yet another torturous breath because he realizes he is leading young boys to their deaths. He is the one that must seek out the flaws, fix it, or eliminate it. There is no place for weak links in Hydra, they make the dynasty stumble on faulty, crackly old knees. They are only children, that need to be trained into perfection, but Hydra does not give them a chance. As soon as they can get overpowered they need to go. They threaten the dynasty. They threaten the decades of life work Hydra has undergone. 

The Spider doesn’t want to do that anymore. He doesn’t want their blood dripping off his fingers, gathering into a big puddle on the floor, smelling like metal and regrets and pain. Their hands should hold a football, not digging their fingers into soft throats. 

Their job is to maintain order, so they cannot be weak. They need to learn to hold their breaths and shoot. They need to learn to stand the smell of blood and the sight of guts and brains splattered over the floor like an abstract painting. 

Their hearts must be hardened and so must their eyes. No trace of mercy and no trace of forgiveness and the Spider wonders if there’s a God after all. 

...

A week goes on and he can’t shake the feeling of wrongness. That something is about to change majorly. He feels it looming over his shoulders like the blade of a guillotine, snapping out of its hinges at any moment. Like a stone rippling a perfectly still river, and he feels as though it’s breaking him in two. It hangs in the air like the putrid stench of death and it’s like everyone knows it because training is harder and more brutal than it ever was. 

That night, he spares the boys and praises them for their hard work. One of the younger boy’s smiles toothily and it makes the Spider smile right back. He knows he’s way too soft for them, but he can’t help himself. 

He leaves and doesn’t realize this will be the last time he sees them. 

...

The walls of the compound fall like an unstable Jenga tower when the Iron Man points his bombs to it.

“No surrender!” Echoes through the halls like fireworks on the fourth of July, a warm summer night. The Spider twitches in his sleep four blocks away. He has his boots toed off and his face pressed into the safety of his pillow.

...

He wakes up to the Soldier barging into his cell, a gun in his hand and grenades on his holster around his stomach. He doesn’t register it at first but people are screaming, and the sounds of gunshots ricochet from the walls like ping pong balls. The Soldier stuffs a gun into the Spider’s holster. He vaguely hears people talking in English and his stomach goes cold with dread. 

The smell of blood tickles his nose and he meets the Soldier’s eyes. Feral and wild. “What’s happening?” he asks, the Soldier hauls him to his feet and he has no time to put on his shoes. 

“The compound is compromised. We’re leaving!” 

The Soldier grabs him by the wrist, hard enough to make it bruise and drags him out of the cell. the Spider has no shoes on, and multiple sharp chips of metal jab their fangs into his feet. The Spider’s heart is pounding so badly he does not feel the pain. Adrenaline courses through his blood and eggs his legs on to just keep going. His other hand tightens around his gun.

They avoid the hallway where the gunshots are the loudest and the sound of bodies hitting the floor the most and make their way through the complicated maze of the compound. They enter corridors where they are not allowed to go and for a second the Spider stills, willing himself to go against orders so they can get away. 

The Soldier is unrelenting and keeps dragging him, hiding them behind corners when they hear the heavy thud of war boots against the ground and a rifle clicking against the legs. 

“Clear!” he hears someone say, a woman with a brittle and deep voice. And he stiffens. An American. She sounds familiar like the hard blows of fragile fingers and blood-soaked bandages. 

The Soldier waits until the voice dies out into the other direction, her being turning into the wisp of a memory in the big halls before they move on from the site and they run along an extended room and for only a second the Spider peeks in but he sees too much than he wanted to. 

He sees the boys on their knees, the trainers that press the barrel of a .four against their temples. One of them, the oldest, spots him and opens his mouth, the beginning of his name ghosting past his lips when the bullet enters his skull and he bucks backward from the blow. 

Then the sight is over and someone starts to scream bloody murder and it isn’t until the Soldier has guided them away from the perilous room and slaps him square in the face that the Spider realizes it’s him. “What the hell are you doing?” the Soldier shouts. 

Something snaps inside the Spider. “They killed them! They killed them!” He screeches like a dog that just lost one of its pups. The bullet went through their heads and cleaved through their brains and now they lay bleeding out on the floor like a spilled drink. They were put down like disease-riddled pigs. Like slaves that were no longer useful. The bullet went straight through their temples and exited on the other side and the Spider wishes fiercely that it was him. That he was the one that got put down and not those boys. Not those kids. 

The Soldier slaps him again because he is sobbing uncontrollably while Hydra’s walls crumble around them and bullets fly around their ears, and then the soldier shakes his shoulders, hard enough that the Spider’s neck bobs along hard with the motion and feels like it’s going to break. His spine a course twig, snapping off the tree in the hard September wind. 

“They killed almost all of them. I just managed to save you and me.” He snaps, and the Spider doesn’t blame him because the fear in the Soldier’s eyes is greater than anything he’ll ever know. “And if you want to stay alive we need to get a move on.” He yells, his metal fingers close around the Spider’s wrist again. Tight enough to bruise and they’re running through the hallways, ignoring the screams of men and child alike. 

They take a left and come eye to eye with the glistening suit of red and gold of the Spider’s dreams, but despite the fact he doesn't feel any anxiety his hand tightens on his gun anyways. The suit stands with his back towards them, conversing in English so fast the Spider doesn’t understand it, but he must have heard them because he turns their way and goes rigid immediately. His faceplate flips up and now it's the Spider turn to go rigid, a million memories fly back to him like zeroes and ones in a computer but they are too indiscernible and he can’t decrypt them. He cannot peel off layer after layer, there are too many files and too little time. 

The suit flips open and a man walks out, and brown eyes stare down his and the Spider almost marvels at it because they came straight out of his dream and he remembers the smell of home and cologne and tears mixed and it’s almost like this isn’t happening. He hasn’t had these dreams in a long time but never had the stench of the bodies littering the floor been so prominent. He wonders when he will wake up. 

“Kid?” the Soldier whispers, in fast Russian, “do you know him?” And the Spider snaps back into reality. This isn’t a dream. This is real. 

He nods. He knows this man. 

(Calloused hands holding him. Brown eyes and golden memories, wired in the frame of a photo. A heartbeat. Like a movie paused. He hears the conversation anyways. 

“It’ll be alright, Pete.” 

“Will it?” tears had dropped onto his hands, a salty, maniacal taste in the back of his throat. His chest heaved up and down like driftwood on raging waves.

A rough beard chafed against his temple. Hot breath gushed down his cheek. “No, but one day it will.”)

“Oh god, Peter?” the man breathes with the fragility of a thousand supernova’s. Like he holds a china cup that’s about to break, like he’s dreaming and he doesn’t want it to end. His voice turns into a lost whisper and the Spider is reminded of warm fires on a winter night, “we thought you were dead.” 

And the name rings as familiar as the bells of a catholic church on Sundays. As familiar as the smell of mac and cheese in a big luxurious kitchen. As familiar as brown eyes, much older than they are. A thousand memories, flash before him like a slide show. 

The name feels right. It feels like him, and with a startling realization that has the Spider’s knees turn into jelly, he knows that it’s him. 

He is Peter. 

They stare at each other for what feels like a thousand years. Tears gather into those eyes that are so like his, and the Spider wants to reach out for that man and wipe them away but the Soldier’s hold is so tight on him that he doesn’t dare move. He holds his breath, and waits for the inevitable shoot out. 

The man presses a finger against his ear and says, with a crackly voice that belongs to a teenager and lost, so lost as he keeps staring at them. “It’s them. Oh, god, Steve it’s them.” 

The man is silent for a second but then goes, “third floor, to the left.” 

Which is the Soldier’s cue to draw his gun. “Let us through,” he grumbles, low and staticky, “and you will not be harmed.” 

The man flexes his fingers, and both the Spider and the Soldier jump when the suit suddenly envelops the man like a perfectly made glove slides over a frozen hand. “No can do, buddy,” Iron-man says, suddenly all cocky and all wealthy. His voice wobbles, though, like he’s holding off sobbing all brokenly. “The kid is coming with me.” 

The Soldier merely shakes his head. “Not a chance,” he answers and fires his rifle at the gleaming suit. Bright, even though it’s night and the lights in the halls are broken. Vibrant, though the compound is haunted by dark ghosts that seek revenge. It's the most beautiful thing the Spider has ever seen. 

...

The other Avengers swarm them, herding around like a pack of lions waiting for their moment to strike the antelope. 

“Bucky, please.” Captain America pleads, his shield drawn tightly to his chest like he’s afraid of something and the Spider wants to know what. “Stop this. You need to come with us.” 

And it feels oppressive and wrong and the Soldier feels it too and he screams at Captain America and he has one hand on one of the grenades, his finger hooked through the firing pin. “Stay the fuck back! I won’t hesitate.” 

They stand back to back. Six people surround them, closing in on them like they’re prey. The one with the bow has its string coiled tight, his arrow ready to penetrate flesh and body and the Spider glares at him, daring him to do it. The man scowls right back. His knuckles go white. The red-head rests her hand on his shoulder, “Easy,” she whispers. The green monster huffs and grumbles but his eyes are sad, so sad and the Spider needs a pillow to press his face into until he can’t breathe anymore.

Like Captain America, Iron-Man pleads as well. “Your aunt is going to be so happy seeing you again, kiddo. We missed you so much.” His faceplate flips up again, tears streak down his gravelly cheeks, “we thought you were dead.” 

Anger wells up from the depth of his stomach. Anger like he hasn’t felt in a very, very long time and it flows over like a shallow pond after it rained the whole night. He balls his fists around his gun and aims it at him. “I waited for you, y’know.” He says, he doesn’t stop the words from coming out, remembering the feelings he had when he came into that other facility still being Peter and having hopes and dreams that he was going to be rescued in a heroic fashion. He bites his lip and shakes his head, “but you never came.” 

Iron-man makes a small noise, a sob, the Spider guesses. “I’m so sorry kid. I’m so sorry.” But his words are shallow caves of broken apologies. The Spider lost something he’ll never get back, and there is no amount of words that can ever talk that right again.

Then, Captain America’s booming voice roars through the halls. “GRENADE!” and they all dive backwards. The man with the hammer swings at something but is too late.

The Soldier grabs his arm, yanks him to the side and they run and behind them concrete and metal explode. Once the smoke has cleared he can’t see or hear the Avengers anymore. 

They enter a fire exit and the Soldier heaves a sigh of relief and mutters finally as he lets go of the Spider’s bicep and they run up and up and up the stairs, and the Spider starts to wonder how tall this building is when they finally enter the end of the stairs, and the Soldier pushes open the door to the roof where all the helicopters stand.

“Wait.” The Spider says, and struggles. He’s not going to get into one of those. He doesn’t want to, what if they crash? What if they lose their balance and tumble into the cold ocean, the waves being their burial place forever? If the Spider thinks about it, it’s poetic. Maybe if they crash, the fish will sing them a song of loss and love and death. Maybe they will finally get some rest. Maybe they will finally know peace. 

Maybe he’ll forget the way a gun feels in his hand and how warm their blood is on their skin. Maybe his fingers will forget how soft a throat feels as it crushes and how to aim a blade and he’ll only dance with the mermaids, their hair drifting through the calm waters. 

“You get in or I’ll make you.” The Soldier threatens, and though the Spider knowss it’s not meant in a malicious way, and that it’s stress from being so close to freedom and yet so far away, he decides to not test the limits today. The snow rages on and his feet are cold. Below them he hears the sound of English voices drawing closer. 

“They’re coming.” The soldier says, and then meets him with pleading eyes. “Please kid, we’ll never be free.” 

And the Spider wants that. He wants the taste of freedom in the back of his throat and all the captivity forced out like bile. He wants home-baked cookies and the laughter of people around him and he never wants to hear Russian screamed at him again and hands slapping his cheeks, chiding him like he is a little child instead of a soldier they trained to murder in cold blood. 

His bare feet run towards the helicopter, and the Soldier starts everything up. 

“We’re almost free, kid.” He whispers, and they take off flying into the air. 

The Spider looks outside the window and watches Hydra go up in flames.


End file.
